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THE STANDARD PRESS 
619 F STREET 






"THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA" 



"*€ 



AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BY 

Honorable HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND 

PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 
OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 



ON 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DAY, OCTOBER NINETEEN 

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR 

AT THE 

LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 



s^ 



Published by the 

WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE 

1905 



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Soarn nf (Enmmtaaumrra of tttr Statrtrt of (Eolunthia 

HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND 

President 

HENRY L. WEST 

JOHN BIDDLE 

Major, Corps of Engineers, United States Army 



(Cnmtntttr* nf Arrangrmrnta 
Appointed by the Commissioners, D. C. 

John W. Douglass, Chairman 
Barry Bulkley, Secretary 
W. V. Cox Frank A. Munsey 

George H. Harries Myron M. Parker 

L. G. Hine Frank K. Raymond 

S. H. Kauffmann George Truesdell 

John F. Wilkins 



(Committee on Houtatana ^urrtjaar Exposition 
Wirifxngtmx Soarn nf (Uraoe 

George Truesdell, Chairman 
Edward T. Bates, Secretary 
A. P. Fardon Theodore W. Noyes 

John H. Moore M. G. Seckendorff 

Wra. H. Moses Beriah Wilkins 

John M. Wilson 






On the nineteenth of October, nineteen hundred 
and four, District of Columbia Day was celebrated 
at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, under the 
direction of the Committee of Arrangements 
appointed by the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia, and the Committee of the Washington 
Board of Trade.* The Commissioners, accompanied 
by members of the Committees, met the President 
and other officials of the Exposition and the members 
of the United States Commission and of the United 
States Government Board, at the Administration 
Building, at ten o'clock in the morning, and in com- 
pany with those gentlemen were escorted by Major- 
General John C. Bates, United States Army, and a 
procession representing the Army and Navy, the 
Phillipine Constabulary, and the Jefferson Guards, 
headed by the United States Marine Band, through 
the principal avenues of the grounds, to the United 
States Government Building, which had been ap- 
pointed as their headquarters for the day. After 
reviewing the procession in company with the officials 
of the Exposition, the representatives of the United 
States Government, and General John C. Bates, the 
Commissioners held a reception in the center of the 
Government Building, from eleven to twelve o'clock, 
which was largely attended by citizens from all over 
the United States, including a large number from 
the District of Columbia. During this reception the 
Marine Band furnished a program of music. At two 
o'clock exercises were held in the hall of the 
Missouri State Building, offered for the purpose by 
the Missouri State Commission, which was filled with 
people throughout the program. Honorable John 
W. Douglass, Chairman of the Committee of Arrange- 

*For account of exercises see 14th Annual Report, Washington Hoard of Trade. 



ments, presided, and addresses were made by 
Honorable David R. Francis, President of the 
Louisiana Purchase Exposition; Honorable Henry 
B. F. Macfarland, President of the Board of Com- 
missioners of the District of Columbia; Honorable 
Williams C. Fox, representing the United States 
Government Board. The Marine Band rendered a 
number of selections. Mr. Macfar land's address 
follows: 



"THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA" 



We are here to congratulate the Louisiana Purchase Ex- 
position and to celebrate the National Capital. They are 
linked together by the memory of Thomas Jefferson, the 
first President who served a full term in the White House, 
where his greatest achievement was the peaceful acquisition 
of the Louisiana Territory, doubling the domain of the Uni- 
ted States for fifteen million dollars. 

Thomas Jefferson had almost as much to do with the crea- 
tion of the National Capital as with the Louisiana Purchase; 
he was second only to George Washington in that work- In 
the long and bitter struggle in Congress over the selection of 
a site for the Federal District, for which the Constitution 
had provided, after the unrequited and indignant soldiers 
of the Revolution had frightened Congress from Philadel- 
phia to Princeton in 1783, and convinced it that the Na- 
tional Government must control the National Capital, it was 
Thomas Jefferson who, at his own dinner table, settled the 
matter and placed the National Capital on the Potomac. 
Afterwards he regretted that he had allowed Alexander 
Hamilton that night to induce him to influence the Virginia 
members to agree to vote for the assumption of the State 
revolutionary-war debts by the National Government to 
please the North, in exchange for Northern votes for the 
Potomac rather than the Delaware site to please the South. 
He had builded better than he knew in this, as afterwards in 
the Louisiana Purchase, yet he deserves the credit of the re- 
sults. 



8 

Having thus brought to George Washington power to 
place the Federal District on the Potomac, Jefferson aided 
him in placing it just where it is and in preparing it for its 
future uses. No other public man, except Madison, took 
anything like the same interest taken by Washington, who 
looked upon the establishment of a permanent seat for the 
Government of the United States, to be controlled by it ex- 
clusively of the States, as one of the most important acts 
of his career. To Washington it was a symbol of perpetual 
union ; of that nation which he foresaw made up of indistruc- 
tible states indissolubly united, when other men were won- 
dering how soon and for what reasons the States would 
break the invisible bonds of their alliance. Jefferson and 
Madison did not view it quite in the same way, but they free- 
ly gave their advice and assistance to the greater Virginian. 

Planning for a nation of illimitable expansion and dura- 
tion, with the spiritual vision of the seer and the scientific 
skill of the surveyor, George Washington fixed upon the 
most strategic and beautiful site in all the hundred-mile 
stretch of the Potomac where he was to choose. He pro- 
ceeded to lay out a city whose magnificent proportions were 
in startling contrast with the comparatively small area, popu- 
lation, and wealth of the country and the weakness and 
poverty of the Government. It deserved all the ridicule 
poured upon it if the United States were not to remain uni- 
ted or if they were not to grow in territory and power. But 
it was only those who could see nothing but that day of 
small things that laughed at Washington's great plans for 
a great future. Jefferson, perhaps with some unconscious 
prescience of his own great expansion of the national ter- 
ritory, saw nothing ridiculous in it, but, on the contrary, 
contributed his practical wisdom and all that he had learned 
in cities abroad to make the plans more splendid. 

No capital in the world at that time could compare with 
the capital that Washington planned, and all of them to- 



gether furnished only suggestions. It is another proof of 
his extraordinary genius that a hundred years afterwards a 
commission of experts, the best that could be found in our 
country, after viewing all the great capitals of the world 
could suggest no improvement upon the old plan of Wash- 
ington. And the plan, it must always be remembered, was 
Washington's, although he had the advice of Jefferson and 
Madison and utilized the technical skill of L'Enfant and 
Ellicott. Unfortunately, Washington did not live to see 
the National Government at work in the National Capital, 
for death carried him off untimely the year before President 
Adams removed it from Philadelphia to Washington. But 
he had set the boundaries of the ten miles square in a dia- 
mond-shape, resting on the southern end of his market-town 
of Alexandria. He had actually acquired over one-half of 
the land of the future City of Washington free of cost to 
the Government on the argument to the nineteen original 
proprietors that what they kept would be greatly increased 
in value. He had on the map marked out the unparalleled 
avenues, streets and parks of the new Capital and, with 
money derived from the sale of part of the Government lots 
and from loans made by Virginia and Maryland, had built 
the President's House, the old Capitol and other buildings 
for the National Government. Every acre of it was sacred 
to his name. No wonder that by universal voice it was 
named the City of Washington. 

When President Jefferson came to his simple inauguration 
on the fourth of March, 1801, he took up again his interest 
in the National Capital, which never flagged during the 
eight years of his service. He showed it in many ways, as 
diverse, for example, as the planting of Lombardy poplars 
down Pennsylvania Avenue and the acceptance of the Presi- 
dency of the Board of Education of Washington. It was* 
of course, in the President's House, which was not called 
the White House until in 1814 it was painted very white to 



10 

cover the marks of its burning by the British, that Jeffersoa 
began, directed and consummated all the negotiations with 
France and Spain and with our own Congress, which ended 
in the extension of the American sovereignty over the Louis- 
iana Territory, the first great step in the westward march 
of the great republic. 

It is most fitting that the representatives of the National 
Capital, with all its associations with Jefferson, should come 
to this un equaled exposition in commemoration of his unique 
and far-reaching deed, and join with the States which he 
knew, and with the States of which he never dreamed, to 
honor his memory. 

When Jefferson became President in 1801 the National 
Capital looked very much as it did when ten years before 
Washington surveyed the unbroken forest site from George- 
town Heights. The two older cities of the Federal District, 
Georgetown in the northwest and Alexandria in the south- 
west, were unchanged, for the plans of Washington covered 
only the Federal city, and nothing had been done under 
those plans beyond opening Pennsylvania Avenue and por- 
tions of a very few other streets, cutting down many noble 
trees, and erecting the few Federal buildings; speculators 
had built a few private structures for hotels and boarding 
houses. The Federal city from the hills surrounding the 
great, beautiful amphitheater of the District, with the Poto* 
mac River glistening through it, was otherwise almost as 
wild as when Captain John Smith first visited it. The Na- 
tional Government had done nothing for the National Capi* 
tal, because it had nothing to do with. It was practically 
penniless. It came to the Federal District on the gifts of 
the original proprietors of the site of Washington and on 
the loans from Virginia and Maryland. There is a curious 
delusion in many quarters that the National Government 
supports the expense of the National Capital, and has always 
done so, and ignorant people sometimes say the inhabitants 



n 

of the District of Columbia are and always have been mendi- 
cants with respect to the National Government. Almost 
the reverse is the case. The National Government was 
literally a mendicant when it came to the District, and the 
inhabitants furnished even the building3 in which it did its 
work. And then for seventy-eight years the National Gov- 
ernment allowed, and indeed required, the comparatively few 
people paying taxes in the District to carry practically the 
whole burden of municipal expenditure. The making of 
the National Capital, which ought to have been from the 
beginning the task of all the people of the United States, 
was at the beginning imposed upon the few residents of the 
District, and its maintenance, which ought to have been 
largely the work of the whole country, was for more than 
three-quarters of a century practically exacted of the peo- 
ple who had the fortune to live iu the National Capital. 

At first the National Government, still almost experimental, 
burdened with the revolutionary debt, and without money, 
representing a country drained by war and with resources 
undeveloped, could do nothing else. But there is no excuse 
for the neglect of after years. Presidents, Senators and 
Representatives repeatedly acknowledged the national obli- 
gation to the National Capital and acknowledged the neglect 
of it. Official reports praised the public spirit of the Dis- 
trict residents, deplored the staggering effect of their muni- 
cipal burdens, and reproached Congress, but beyond add- 
ing to the buildings which had been given to it in 1800, or 
erecting new ones for its use, and providing an aqueduct to 
bring water for its needs, the National Government did 
practically nothing for the National Capital. The municipal 
improvements had to be made and the municipal services 
had to be maintained by the people who lived in Washing- 
ton. The National Government, of course, did nothing in 
Georgetown or in Alexandria, and those muncipalities had 
to bear all their expenses. By 1846 Alexandria had become 



12 

so dissatisfied that it brought about the retrocession to Vir- 
ginia of the territory she had given for the District, leaving 
only the seventy square miles of land and water ceded by 
Maryland, including the whole breadth of the Potomac. 

The chief explanation of the extraordinary treatment 
given the National Capital by the National Government 
through so many years, is that it was not regarded as settled 
beyond possibility of change that the seat of government 
would remain in the District of Columbia. When it was 
established it was about the center of population of the 
United States, stretching then in a thin line from Maine 
to Georgia. But when Jefferson suddenly doubled the area 
of the United States, and the pioneer hosts poured over the 
Alleghanies to the winning of the West, a movement began 
for the removal of the National Capital to the West, where 
the center of population was soon to be. Even in 1814, 
when the British burned the White House and the Capitol, 
this movement had become so strong that the people of 
Washington, out of their comparative poverty, contributed 
largely to provide temporary quarters for the Government, 
lest, in the excitement of the hour, and under the new 
argument that the Capital was too near the coast to be safe 
from foreign attack at any time, the National Government 
might betake itself to the interior. As the population of the 
western country increased the difficulty of communication 
with the Federal District on the extreme eastern edge of 
the country became more and more practical and impres- 
sive. If it had not been for the development of the rail- 
road and the telegraph the argument arising from this dif- 
ficulty might have become irresistible. 

As it was, the advocates of the removal of the Capital 
from Washington westward, St. Louis being most popular 
with them, were hopeful until after the civil war had ended 
forever any serious consideration of the proposition. In the 
fires of that great conflict, when the matchless armies of the 



13 

North and South fought over Washington as the symbol of 
victory, the National Government was welded to that home 
beyond the power of anyone to remove it. It was not so 
much the cost of the national buildings as it was the cost of 
the national war, especially in the best blood of the country, 
that made all talk of removal ridiculous after 1865, when 
the National Capital had become sacred through mighty sac- 
rifices. 

All the while the people of Washington did their duty, 
and more than their duty, in upbuilding and maintaining the 
nation's city. They taxed themselves to the utmost, they 
went into debt to meet the inordinate demands upon them. 
They have never received due credit either from the Na- 
tional Government, or the country at large, for what they 
did in this respect during the first three-quarters of the last 
century. Instead of grateful acknowledgments they have 
had too often sneers and reproaches. Yet though they 
were not usually given even the encouragement of praise, 
they kept right on with the same spirit which in every na- 
tional war has made the District contribute more than its 
quota of volunteers for the army and navy. Nothing is fur- 
ther from the truth than the hackneyed slander constantly 
repeated even to this day that the inhabitants of the District 
are "grasping office-holders without civic pride or national 
patriotism." The officials and employees of the National 
Government now, when there are more than ever before, 
are twenty-five thousand in number, or about one-twelfth of 
the population, and, since a large number of them are "un- 
married, they represent not more than seventy-five thou- 
sand people in their households, or in all less than one-third 
of the population. Moreover, they are exceptionally intel- 
ligent and well educated people, selected from among the 
best in the different States and Territories, representative of 
the cream of our people, with all the virtues characteristic 
of Americans. Drawn as thev are chieflv from outside of 



14 

the great cities, they have more than the average of "civic 
pride and national patriotism." None but the ignorant or 
the malicious would bring such a railing accusation against 
them. 

But the majority of the people of the District of Colum- 
bia are not in the service of the National Government< 
Many of them have lived there always, and all, like 

the men and women in the national service, represent the 
best elements in the citizenship of the whole country. No- 
where in the world is there a better body of citizens with 
more "civic pride and national patriotism," as the work 
they have done and the sacrifices they have made for the 
nation's city and the nation itself abundantly testify. In 
one respect they have the advantage over the people of any 
other place in the United States in that they are not cursed 
by the baneful interference of partisan politics in all their 
municipal affairs, so that they can well show civic pride as 
well as civic spirit. 

In Jefferson's day the District of Columbia had no gen- 
eral executive government, nor was any given to it by Con- 
gress until 1871, when a full territorial form of govern- 
ment, with a Governor, a Legislature, and a Delegate in 
^Congress, was provided for it. Congress, under the quaint 
phrase of the Constitution, has the power to '"exercise ex- 
clusive legislation" over the Federal District, but cannot ex- 
ercise executive authority.! In 1801 it established a judi- 
ciary system for the District of Columbia. But for seventy 
years Washington was governed by a Mayor and Councils, 
and Georgetown by a Mayor and Councils, while the rest 
of the territory of the District (after Alexandria with its 
Mayor and Councils and Alexandria County with its county 
government had been retroceded to Virginia) had no other 
executive authority except the levy court. For the first dec- 
ade the Mayor of Washington was appointed by the Presi- 
dent of the United States. But after that, and always in 



15 



the case of the Mayors of Georgetown and Alexandria, these 
officers were elected by the qualified male voters. When 
the civil war broke out Congress set up a metropolitan police 
department for the whole District of Columbia. 

But for a general District government, we are indebted 
to General Grant, whose victories had saved the national 
life and had insured the permanence of the National Capi- 
tal. When he became President he took an interest in the 
development of the City of Washington and stoutly sup- 
ported Alexander K. Shepherd, the remarkable young native 
of Washington who was ambitious to carry out the long- 
neglected plans of George Washington for magnificent 
streets and avenues. Through Grant's support and that of 
Congress, in which Shepherd's political friends then had the 
majority, and the assistance of other far-seeing and de- 
termined men, the territorial form of government was se- 
cured from Congress, and under its powers the plow of 
progress was driven in deep furrows along all the principal 
highways of the city. The Governors, first Henry D. Cooke 
and then Alexander R. Shepherd, were appointed by Presi- 
dent Grant, together with a Board of Public Works, of 
which Shepherd was the leading spirit, and which did the 
actual work of improvement. The voters elected the As- 
sembly, the Delegate to Congress and other officers, and by 
a majority approved the Shepherd policy. The cost of it 
was to be borne as the cost of all similar improvements on 
a smaller scale had been borne, by the people of Washington. 
The work was done in such a way that it could not be un- 
done all over the city, but hurriedly, and therefore roughly 
and expensively. There was the inevitable protest from 
many taxpayers who could not see its results for the burdens 
which it imposed upon them and who, at the same time, 
were alarmed by the possibilities of ill-effects from universal 
manhood suffrage in the National Capital. They appealed 
to Congress, where the political majority in the House was 



16 

changed, and, although rigid investigation found no fault 
in Governor Shepherd himself, the improvements were stop- 
ped, a change in the system of government was ordered, for 
the time being, until a permanent form of government 
could be carefully framed, a temporary Board of Commis- 
sioners was to exercise executive authority in the District, 
and Henry T. Blow, of Missouri, William Dennison, of 
Ohio, and John H. Ketcham, of New York, were appointed 
for that purpose. 

Congress, in preparing the permanent form of govern- 
ment, took into account the long and just complaint that the 
National Government had neglected the National Capital, 
together with the protests against the continuance of the 
electoral franchise, which were strengthened by the evident 
impracticability of submitting the United States to the tax- 
ation of its property or to the appropriation of any of its 
funds by a vote of the District taxpayers. It became evi- 
dent that if the United States was to share with the Dis- 
trict, taxpayers the municipal expenses it would have to ex- 
ercise exclusively the power of taxation and the power of 
appropriation. A partnership between the United States 
and the District of Columbia was entered into on this basis 
and embodied in the Act of June, 1878, "to provide a 
permanent form of government," called by the United 
States Supreme Court the "Constitution of the District of 
Columbia." 

This form of government has had twenty-five years of in- 
creasing and uninterrupted success. Under it not only the 
City of Washington, but the entire District of Columbia, 
has remarkably developed and advanced in every way. 
George Washington's plans for the Federal City have been 
largely carried out, and the principles of them have been ap- 
plied to the surrounding territory of the District with its 
smaller towns and villages. Every visitor to Washington 
will testify to its increasing prosperity and beauty, and those 



17 

who have not seen it since the civil war days would hardly 
recognize it. In many respects it is now the most attractive 
capital in the world, and it will have recognized and unsur- 
passable preeminence in this regard before many years are 
passed. Foreigners coming to Washington now unite in 
such enthusiastic praise as contrasts sharply with what for- 
eigners recorded of their impressions in the earlier days. All 
agree that a wonderful transformation has been wrought. 

In this last quarter of a century the United States, be- 
sides erecting new and beautiful buildings of its own and as- 
suming half of the obligation for the Shepherd improve- 
ments, has paid half of the municipal expenses of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, except those of the water department, 
which are paid entirely by the water takers, the National 
Government getting its water supply free. As the United 
States owns a little more than half of the land in the Na- 
tional Capital, its share ought to be at least a little more than 
half of the expenses. But half a loaf is so much better than 
no bread that the present arrangement was very acceptable to 
the District taxpayers. 

Senator Hoar several years ago pointed out a more excel- 
lent way, however, suggesting that, in all equity, the Na- 
tional Goverment should bear all the expenses of the Nation- 
al Capital over and beyond the returns of what would be re- 
garded as reasonable taxation anywhere else. Under this 
ideal plan the District taxpayers would contribute fair taxes, 
and whether they amounted to one-half or one-third of the 
amount needed the United States would bear the rest of the 
necessary expenditure. Senator Hoar believed that the 
sreat majority of the intelligent people of the United States 
would approve his plan. He recognized the new interest 
which the people of the country take in the National Capi- 
tal anr 1 their desire to have it developed and embellished, 
which has been especially manifest since the celebration of 
the Centennial of the National Capital on December 12th, 



18 

1900 when, for twenty-four hours, the National Government 
took holiday and joined with the citizens of the District in a 
commemoration which furnished the only news from Wash- 
ington that day and held the attention of the whole country. 
Every good American is proud of his country and proud of 
its capital, and wants to see the Capital in every way worthy 
of the power and glory of the country. 

The surrender of the suffrage under the permanent form 
of government of the District of Columbia is generally satis- 
factory to its people, who realize that they are better off 
without partisan politics, since the municipal business is not 
affected by "bosses" or machines, corruption or blackmail, 
and is under the scrutiny and influence of a public opinion 
which cannot be deflected by political considerations. All 
the newspapers are independent, the taxpayers are organ- 
ized into representative and powerful associations, and 
criticism and suggestions are quickly heeded by the public 
servants, who cannot fall back either upon a partisan press 
or a political machine for protection, but who have every 
incentive to administer their trust honestly and efficiently. 
"Justitia omnibus" is the District's motto and its govern- 
ment's rule. There are some District taxpayers who, for senti- 
mental or other reasons, would like to have the suffrage 
restored in the District, but they know that they can never 
have universal suffrage there, and that it is extremely im- 
probable that suffrage in any form would be given, even if 
its advocates could agree among themselves as to the limita- 
tions that ought to be imposed. 

Congress is the legislature of the District of Columbia. 
Its executive government, under the Act of Congress of 
June, 1878, is a board of three Commissioners appointed by 
the President of the United States, two from civil life, 
always of opposite politics, and one an engineer officer of the 
Army of high rank, to whom the board intrusts the imme- 
diate direction of all engineering and construction work. 



19 

The Commissioners appoint practically all the other officers 
and employees of the District government, and all serve 
under the direction of the Commissioners. The Commis- 
sioners have power from Congress to enact municipal legis- 
lation in the form of health, police, building, and other reg- 
ulations. They represent the District, before Congress, 
where the committees dealing with District affairs and mak- 
ing District appropriations confer with them as to all Dis- 
trict measures, and in all business with foreign govern- 
ments and municipalities, or the States, Territories and 
municipalities of the United States. The President submits 
to them all bills connected with the District which have 
passed Congress before he passes upon them. 

Many of the best citizens of the District have served the 
public under the present form of government and it has had 
the cordial support of most of the others, who are accustomed 
to say that they have the best form of municipal government 
in the United States. 

The national life has been and is faithfully reflected in 
the National Capital. It has been not onlv the scene of the 
greatest political transactions in our history since the year 
1800, but the meeting place of all the States, the special 
home of the Flag, the center of national sentiment, with 
undivided and uninterrupted allegiance to the National Gov- 
erment. Every President except Washington has done his 
work in the White House. Every Congress since the Fifth 
has done its work in the Capitol. There, too, John Mar- 
shall, greatest Chief Justice, made the United States a "more 
perfect Union," a nation by the authority of his reasoning, 
and there all his successors have carried out his principles 
in the Supreme Court, the greatest tribunal in the world. 
There the great captains of our armies and navies have had 
their headquarters, and there the directors and scientists of 
all the governmental services have planned and wrought. 
The memories of the great dead and their great deeds are 



20 

everywhere there, and the greatest men of every State are 
on the roll of the residents of the District. 

The Capital has grown with the growth of the country,, 
which could be seen there as nowhere else. It has been 
always national, and at the same time cosmopolitan. It 
has never had any other flag than the Star and Stripes, or 
any other loyalty than to the United States. The national 
feeling in all its phases has been constantly manifested there. 
Although it has had the distinction of being the official 
home of the ambassadors and ministers of all foreign gov- 
ernments, the place where all our treaties have been signed 
and most of them negotiated, it has never been in any way 
under the domination of foreign influence. It has always 
been a typical American community of the best sort. It 
has known neither riots nor lynch law. It has raised to a 
higher power the patriotism of every American who has 
visited it, and has helped him to think continentally. 

Almost in the center of the original District of Columbia 
stands the Washington Monument, an unadorned shaft of 
stone higher than any other in the world, symbolic not only 
of the life of George Washington, but of the city which he 
founded, rising far above the noise and dust, in strength and 
simplicity. From its windows, five hundred feet above the 
ground, one can see almost the entire District of Columbia 
without a glass. Athens or Kome was smaller when it ruled 
the world. But, although the District has more people 
than any of six of the States — Delaware, Idaho, Montana, 
Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada — and than any of the Terri- 
tories, it is smaller than any other political division 0/ the 
United States. The District does not stand for material 
riches, but it is rich in intellectual and spiritual wealth, in 
good government, good society, outward beauty and inward 
grace, noble memories, and glorious history. It stands, in 
strength and simplicity, for intellectual and spiritual achieve- 
ment. Above the clamor of the market places and the whirl 



21 

of sensuous pleasures it reminds us constantly of men who 
were too busy to make money, too high minded to spend it 
sordidly, and who gave to their country what others give to 
themselves. Its voice summons the youth of the country with 
the irresistible call of duty to the unselfish life of patriotic- 
endeavor. 

The calm height of the Washington Monument is a good 
place from which to see things in proper proportion as with 
the serene eye of history. It is a place for optimism, not 
for pessimism. As we look westward up the picturesque 
Potomac, curving under the setting sunbeams, we re- 
member that George Washington looked with the eye of 
faith from those heights to that promised land beyond the 
horizon, beyond the Alleghanies, which he wanted the Uni- 
ted States to occupy, and we remember how, slowly but 
surely, in spite of all difficulties, the thought of that first 
great American expansionist has been carried out until Ameri- 
can principles, represented by the American Flag, have been 
planted in the islands of the sea, in the uttermost parts 
of the earth, far beyond his farthest dream. Looking south- 
ward, towards his home and tomb at Mount Vernon, we re- 
call how his ideals of republican freedom, his example as a 
Revolutionary patriot, brought a score of republics into be- 
ing out of the monarchical possessions south of us, and how 
his teachings made the United States the protector and the 
friend of everyone of them without making the United 
States the enemy of any other country. As we turn to the 
eastern windows, looking out beyond the hills of Maryland 
towards the Atlantic Ocean, we see the living influence of 
Washington in the Republic of France, , in the freedom 
which has spread through all western Europe, in the demo- 
cracy and liberty of the British Isles. At The Hague, we 
see enthroned by the public opinion of civilized nations his 
teaching of international justice as the means of keeping the 
peace of the world — that doctrine which, by Washington's 



22 

direction, John Jay embodied in the famous treaty with 
England, then denounced, now admired, the first treaty in 
which that principle was found. Far to the northward we 
see our sister state of Canada, self-governing, American in 
all but form and name, revering Washington and living out 
his deepest teachings. 

We can trace from this high point the way in which our 
own nation has been led, through the wrongs and the dangers 
that we have passed, even through the awful sufferings and 
sacrifices of the civil war, into larger opportunities, greater 
responsibilities, and a more splendid renown. It is a cure 
for discouragement to reflect at the top of the Washington 
Monument upon the progress of the nation of Washington 
under the inspiration of his principles and his career. 

Even though clouds cover the zenith, even though rain 
falls from their darkness, the sun shining over Arlington 
Heights, where we can see the graves of men who died that 
the Kepublic might live, arches the Capitol with a splendid 
rainbow, the perpetual reminder of the promises of God. 
Taking the larger view of our country and its relation to the 
world, facing the new occasions and their new duties, appre- 
ciating that we have been brought into unique leadership 
among the nations and with alien peoples, adding to our un- 
settled questions at home even greater questions abroad, we 
see clouds of darkness over us, and even the rain falling upon 
us; but we also see shining through the rain the rays of the 
Sun of Righteousness turning the drops into the rainbow 
of the covenant of God, that those who obey shall be sus- 
tained, and we remember all the years of the right hand of 
the Most High. It is in this that our hope lies, as all oui 
wisest men confess. Not by our might, not by our wisdom — 
no, "but my Spirit," saith the God of our fathers. Without 
Him our efforts are but losing. With Him we may be sure 
of success. 



23 

At every call to arms the men of America have flocked 
to its standard and the women of America have sent them, 
all ready to give up everything for the Republic. It is 
harder to make this supreme sacrifice in time of peace than 
in time of war. But, under the inspiration of Washington, 
who served no less nobly in peace than in war, we may re- 
solve to live for our country as readily as we would die for 
her, and to follow in the way of the Divine commandment, 
that she may have the largest life, the greatest glory and 
honor. 



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29 




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